A good dryland program can play a significant role in the development of your swimmers. It can build a solid foundation, in which senior level and college coaches can build on. It can improve coordination, efficiency, neuromuscular control, and recovery if done properly. Unfortunately, many coaches do not have formal training on strength and conditioning, making it extremely difficult to write an efficient and effective dryland program. The workout below is a workout designed for swimmers aged 11-14 that hits all the main muscle groups. The workout below focuses on building solid movement patterns in the squat, push, pull, and hinge movements.

Format: There will be two circuits with 3 exercises each. Each exercise will be performed for 1 minute straight, with a 15 second rest break between each exercise. The circuit is gone through 3 times. After the first circuit, you can give your swimmers a couple minutes of additional rest if needed.

Warm up:

Downward dog push up x12

Side Plank :45 each side

SLDL to March x12 each leg

Single leg Bridge :30 hold each leg

Pogo Jumps x20

Repeat x2

Circuit One:

Dryland Warm Up:

The warm up involves a health mix of scapular stability, core stability, dynamic balance, and low level plyometrics to help warm up your swimmers, while at the same time incorporating injury prevention drills.

• Downward dog push-ups help reinforce proper scapular upward rotation while the push helps strengthen the serrates anterior. Without upward rotation of the shoulder blade, swimmers are not able to reach as far forward/overhead. This can lead to decreased distance per stroke, impingement at the shoulder or other movement patterns that increase the risk of injury.
• Side plank: In many other sports, the athlete has their lower extremity to provide a stable base for their core and upper extremities. But this is not the case in swimming. Instead, swimmers have to use their core musculature to provide a stable base for their shoulders and legs. Side planks allow for development of the obliques, which will allow a swimmer to have a stable base while rotating during long axis strokes.
• SLDL to March: This is an amazing exercise to help improve proprioception, balance, and motor control. All of which are areas where many swimmers are weak.
• Single Leg Bridge: The single leg bridge helps training hip extension, training the “up-kick” part of your kicking. A bonus is that the single leg bridge helps develop train your core musculature to stay stable while your leg is moving, similar to kicking when you are swimming.
• Pogo Jumps: A proper warm up will utilize plyometrics to help prime the nervous system for the workout ahead. Pogo jumps are a low level plyometric that easy to execute that will increase their heart rate, prime their nervous system, and help increase their bone mineral density as an added bonus.

Dryland Circuit One:

Goblet Squat: The goblet squat is my favorite squat variation for young swimmers. Why? Because it has miraculous way of improving their squat form without any extra cues or feedback. This allows swimmers to utilize all the muscles in the lower extremity with proper control and will lead to all-around better athletic development.

Pull up Eccentrics: The lats are the powerhouse muscle for swimmers. Therefore, its important to develop strength in the lats. Improved lat strength leads to better pulling, therefore increased speed. Many young swimmers struggle with pull ups, especially when completing >5 reps. Eccentric pull ups allow younger swimmers to help bridge the gap between not being able to do a pull up and doing multiple reps each set.

Prayer Rotation: Without full thoracic spine mobility, swimmers will have to compensate with their shoulders or low back to achieve full overhead motion. This exercise aims to help improve mobility and serve has a break after completing two compound exercises.

Dryland Circuit Two:

RDL: The RDL helps work on developing the hip hinge pattern, which strengthens the hamstrings, glutes, calves, core, and erector spinae muscles. Strengthening the hip hinge movements will increase power when jumping off the blocks, pushing off the wall during a turn, and when kicking. This can also be a difficult movement to master, making it important to work on while your swimmers are young.

Military Press: Many dryland programs focus on the muscles in the back, but the muscles around the shoulder and front of the chest are the main movers when you swim. If the pecs and deltoids are not strong enough, there is increased demand on the rotator cuff and scapular stabilizers during a swimmers pull. The rotator cuff and scapular stabilizers are great at stabilizing you shoulder, but they are not great at powerfully moving you through the water. When done properly, the military press trains the rotator cuff and scapular stabilizers to stabilize and allows the deltoids and pecs to be the prime movers for the shoulder.

Bear Crawl: Bear crawls are excellent for numerous reasons. First, they require a stable core while moving both your upper and lower extremities, similar to swimming. Second, your hand is fixed point in which your body is moving around. This is also similar to swimming, when during the pull phase of the freestyle stroke, your hand is the fixed point, so your body is moving around your hand as a result. This helps train the shoulder blade in the same pattern as it functions during the pull phase of your freestyle. Third, it can be done anywhere and requires no equipment.

Cool Down:

Diaphragmatic breathing is important for everyone, but especially swimmers. Through thousands of rotations a day, swimmers can develop tight and restricted muscles around the neck. Muscle tightness around the neck, decreases the ability of the diaphragm muscle to function properly and can also change the biomechanics of your shoulder. Diaphragmatic breathing is an easy way to relax the muscles around the neck, which can increase the amount of air you can get in your lungs and help optimize the function of your shoulders.